


My Blade, My Love

by WarriorOmen



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Established Relationship, Flirting, Fluff, Historical, M/M, Pre-Movie, Romance, Sword Fighting, Sword Flirting, historical setting, sword play
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-24
Updated: 2020-09-24
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:34:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26634415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WarriorOmen/pseuds/WarriorOmen
Summary: Joe and Nicky. Sword fighting. But in the flirty way.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 30
Kudos: 184





	My Blade, My Love

**Author's Note:**

> Sword fighting but make it love.  
> If you like [Tumblr](https://coffeebeannate.tumblr.com/) come and visit.  
> Self beta’d.

It became fun by the late 13th century.

When their battles had shifted from one another to a unified front. When they’d started being able to train together without some lingering guilt or worry. When it had moved beyond the concern, the questions. When Yusuf could turn his scimitar towards Nicolò without thinking, ‘remember when this was true violence'? And Nicolò could tilt his sword towards Yusuf and _wink._

 **That** was when it became _fun._

Yusuf is reminded of that now, reminded as Nicolò stands from where he’s been lovingly polishing up his longsword, a hard line of solid metal across his stomach, outlined by a dark blue satin vest, overlaying the white shirt.

When he stands, he’s all hard lines and determination, the shoulder-length hair framing his face, considering Yusuf contemplatively.

Their outfits, as fanciful as mid-19th century clothing can be, almost mirror each other’s. Though Yusuf’s vest was emerald green, curls a little shorter than Nicolò ’s hair, but no less abundant.

Sometimes, when they trained alone and in privacy, they stuck to trousers alone, other times, privacy or not, there was something _thrilling_ about the contained power held within the confines of their clothes. Yusuf long ago told Nicolò that the _right_ clothing could be just as much a thrill as being unclothed. And when Nicolò had picked up on the joy of anticipation, he’d taken to it like a duck to water.

Many hours had gone by lovingly tormenting each other with the right _attire._

“Are you ready?” Nicolò asks, Yusuf catching the slight hitch at the end of the word ‘ready’ meaning that he knew Nicolò was already excited, sending a spark of anticipation up Yusuf’s spine.

 _Would it ever get old?_ He sometimes wondered, _the intensity, the thrill that this man brings? The weakness to my knees, the thud of my heart?_

He knew not, Nicolò had asked him that very thing in the reverse many times.

“When am I not?” He asks, instead, drawing up his scitimar, amused at how Nicolò’s eyes follow the path of sunlight up the metal, the way he straightens himself across from Yusuf, a slow flick of his tongue across the bottom lip.

 _Very excited, then._ Yusuf thrills in anticipation. When Nicolò had adopted the longsword for his chosen blade, Yusuf had marveled at the size of the thing. A two-handed blade seemed cumbersome, but Nicolò had been so eager, so full of raw desire and excitement, that all Yusuf could do was encourage him. It was so hard to be deterred when Nicolò was that passionate about something, unable to doubt him whatsoever.

_“What a beast of a blade.” Yusuf had muttered at the time, “Two hands, Nicolò are you sure?”_

_“Yes, yes, Yusuf.” Nicolò’s eyes gazing longingly at his new choice, all bright wonder and reverence, “There is a comfort to it, something about it that I prefer. Heavy, yes, but there is ability there.”_

_Yusuf could not argue that, “It leaves you open.” He’d warned, “Exposed.”_

_“Well.” Nicolò had smiled, “Good thing my back has always been covered, then. By one bearing a skill set as desirable as yours, Yusuf.”_

_And that had ended that weariness._

“Always ready.” He answers now, bracing back. There’s tension coiling in his legs, his back where the weight is carried as he braces up, ready and prepared. This is an ancient dance they’ve long since perfected, and Yusuf could never tire of it.

Nicolò, already lunging towards him in an opening attack, is mirroring Yusuf’s thoughts unconsciously, those bright, shiny blue-green eyes sparking when Yusuf easily blocks his attack with little effort on his part.

 _So easy?_ Yusuf’s eyes say, _are we starting slow?_

Nicolò backs himself up, Yusuf entering the miniscule open space and taking a chance, Nicolò anticipating him, and the blades tap together to gently to be considered a real clash, a light ‘ping’ in the air.

The covered gardens of their current home offer enough privacy that they can do this more freely, and it thrills them both equally. The slow dance and barely-there touches of blade slowly gaining traction, their attacks becoming more definitive, more intense.

Sliding together, dancing together, blades meeting in the middle, at the side, above the head. Yusuf finding a space where Nicolò is open, Nicolò using the blunt force of a sword as large as his to block much of Yusuf’s vision. Breathing increasing, feet spiraling, arms flexing, wrists flicking.

Nicolò takes advantage of a weak spot, getting an opening on Yusuf and dragging his sword along the side of Yusuf’s arm, down his hip.

Yusuf retaliates, anticipating a move before Nicolò realized he’d been made, grazing his scimitar down his collarbone, his vest, only to be thrown off with a smirk.

Nicolò’s hair is getting stickier, sweater, thicker around the shoulders.

Yusuf’s thighs are tensing, chest heaving with exertion.

A blade to the corner of the eye, to the side of the face, a movement to the waist, a flicker to the hip.

The grass is disturbed by their rapidly increasing movements, the dance dregs up mud, and that mud is slick beneath their feet. When Nicolò starts to lose his footing, Yusuf takes advantage, lunging himself forward into the movement, knocking Nicolò to the ground, arms about his head, scimitar leveled horizontally with his chest, outlining him.

“Cheat.” Nicolò huffs, longsword still held in his wrist, slightly outwards, but more than ready to strike Yusuf if Nicolò desired it.

“When nature presents opportunity, one is loath not to take it.” Yusuf breathed, growing distracted by the way Nicolò’s hair is splayed beneath his head, brown against green, eyes wide, shiny and blown, obscured mostly now by pupil.

“Yes, Yusuf, how correct you may be.” Nicolò breathes, slowly.

There’s redness flushing his cheeks, wrinkles to his clothes, and the sight is precisely the distraction Nicolò needed, reversing their positions in a flurry of limbs with a triumphant cry, only this time, when he pins Yusuf, it’s Yusuf’s own scimitar against his chin, the curve tilting into his flesh, taunting, teasing.

Yusuf gasps, startled, staring at him as Nicolò straddles his waist, framing himself above Yusuf, head hanging inches from Yusuf’s own, bright-eyed and wild looking, a cat waiting to pounce.

“Nicolò..”

“Failed to notice even the movement of my fingers.” Nicolò huffs, sounding both pleased and surprised, “Fortunate I am not an enemy, Yusuf.”

_Not anymore._

“Not often I fail to notice something of you, Nicolò.” Yusuf says, tongue heavy in his mouth, voice thick. The sight of his scimitar, pressed to his own throat and teasing just on the side of threatening, held in the grasp of the man he knows so well is a taunting delight. One that Yusuf should not be surprised by the attractiveness of.

Nicolò inhales, steadily, but betraying the arousal in how it shakes when he tries, bending himself forward at the waist, until he’s able to hover, nose brushing Yusuf’s, the shiny blade a constant reminder just below their chins. “You are not alone, I can recall, those centuries past, when this was new. We were still so youthful, so confused and startled by the existence of each other. I may not have longer been flaying you with my blade, but still..so much was unknown. And one time, during a training fight, we’d both gotten agitated..”

Yusuf knows what Nicolò is referring to, but hearing it told back with Nicolò’s breathless tone is a treat Yusuf would never part with, rolling his hips upwards to drag into Nicolò, encouraging him.

Nicolò curses, even as he slides himself back _just so,_ nestling Yusuf’s thickening hardness into the space behind his own, exactly where he wants it. Even through the clothing, it’s a tangible sensation, and Yusuf’s teeth find Nicolò’s jaw, teasing.

“Go on, Nicolò.”

He’s not moved the scimitar, the blade a heaviness between their bodies, even as the press themselves closer together. A single wrong move from Yusuf’s head would draw blood, and Yusuf delights in the knowledge, the danger, held utterly in Nicolò’s control, even as he falls apart in his retelling.

“I never can recall what had us so wrung out, so stressed, but I remember how you moved, how I moved. I recall how our words had interspersed the blades, how our hair kept tossing in the wind, all dusty and sandy, and when you got me down, but unlike now, I was on my stomach.”

It had been a dirty move, even at the time, attacking Nicolò’s back that way. But they’d done plenty of dirty moves _before._ And, as Nicolò pointed out, they’d been upset. (Yusuf can’t recall over what either, but he likes to think it was part of their endless dancing, the constant threat of how they knew they were meant to be one, and still had so much animosity, so much to consider. So many differences to adjust, to work through. Maybe they were homesick, maybe they were lonely, both so unable to return to what they’d both known, forced to accept that fact of that being dead and buried, and a burning, throbbing passion that had threatened to be their own un-doings, again and again.)

“I was outraged, and surprised, I remember how you felt, how heavy your legs were. I knew them by then, we’d been what we know of _now_ as together-but there was such tension in both of us. And then I felt the point of your scimitar along my back.”

For a brief moment, it had frightened Nicolò, not because he thought Yusuf would kill him, they were beyond that. But because it had _thrilled him._ He could feel that excitement, that desperation even now in every retelling, mimicked in the groan Yusuf lets out beneath him as Nicolò rocks himself down, slow, but eager.

“I started to apologize.” Yusuf recalls, grunting with the movement, “But you cursed, your hair was matted into the sand, into the dust, and you said-

“If you move, I’ll make sure you regret it for the rest of your endless life.” Nicolò chuckles, darkly, “It felt so good, so _right._ All that tension spiraling. You were always something that made sense, even after our mortal lives had been dead and buried, and nothing of you could ever feel anything but secure.”

For a moment, Yusuf closes his eyes, recalling the desperate, intense _pleading_ look he’d gotten at the time. How Nicolò had slowly let himself go more and more lax, how Yusuf had tightened his grip against the scimitar, and started a slow drag of it down Nicolò’s spine. The point stopping at every notch, Nicolò panting, shuddering, and so carefully arching himself into it.

“I did move.” Yusuf points out, opening his eyes slowly, gasping when Nicolò rocks back down, their steady grind increasing. “But not to leave.”

“No.” Nicolò huffs, “I don’t think we’d be here…if you had.”

“You arched so well into that touch, into the blade.” Yusuf groans, wishing he could free his hands, delighting when Nicolò doesn’t let him, keeps him pinned, the scimitar between their chests, hips and thighs rolling, rocking, pushing and pulsing. “I’d never felt such trust.”

“I trust you.” Nicolò’s words getting far less fanciful, “I knew it then, too.”

“You are beautiful in that absolution,” Yusuf groans, “Nicolò..”

Nicolò bends his head down, the hand not holding the scimitar’s hilt finding the side of Yusuf’s throat, fingers curling around the back to drag his head up, meeting him in the middle, tongue sliding across Yusuf’s bottom lip, granted entrance before it has to ask, slotting together, finding peace and drinking down shared moans. Yusuf tilts his leg outwards enough that it can bracket Nicolò’s waist, encouraging his erratic downwards rock and thrusting upwards steadily.

Nicolò is the one holding the blade, but Yusuf is the one holding Nicolò, their bodies shaking, quivering, hips rolling, Yusuf jerking, Nicolò bouncing, everything fuzzy, blurry, tunnel visioned around the edges.

The kiss breaks, but their mouths stay together, panting into the barely-there space, groaning, gasping, and when Yusuf feels the shifting of the scimitar, he fells undone, unbridled, a shaky thrust premeditating into a throbbing as his cock pulses, shuddering with the movement, the vibrations of it radiating through himself, straight into Nicolò, who grinds down mercilessly, whining into Yusuf’s gasping pants and following him straight down, hips shaking, stuttering, groaning with it, coaxed by Yusuf’s slow, murmured encouragements, though the language is barely that.

Together, they catch their breaths, together, they laugh, even as Nicolò is first to shift, Yusuf biting back a chuckle when his brow crinkles, lip curling at the stickiness now confined in his clothes.

He moves to shift, gently lifting the scimitar from Yusuf’s chest, helping him up. When they get their footing, he hands the scimitar back, Yusuf dragging him by the extended arm with fingers along his wrist, dodging the blade to kiss him, slow, steady.

“You look good, holding her.” Yusuf comments, slowly taking his blade in hand, Nicolò’s eyes sparkling, dancing, as he bends to pick up his own.

“That may be so, but I prefer her in yours.”

**Author's Note:**

> A few things; I like swords. I like historical things. I love Kaysanova. Perfect combo. I didn’t HAVE to set this in the Victorian Era (and I’m aware the Western Victorian Era was a centralized thing, era’s mean different things world-wide), but listen, I did not make myself suffer through three.hours of A Dangerous Fortune to not get a much better fill for Victorian clothes, especially on these two, who are far better characters than anyone in that..thing that considers itself a movie.
> 
> Ahem, ANYWAY.
> 
> I also have a bias for those clothes anyway. I’m a trainee historian, sue me. 
> 
> There is no evidence that Yusuf or Nicolò uses ‘she/her’ for their swords. However, much like cars, it’s a thing I’ve seen time and time again, and I have a bit of a fondness for it, so I used it. Is it accurate? No idea. Canon? No clue. It’s here anyway.
> 
> There is also some debate about Nicolò’s sword in general. The longsword he uses in movie is a later one than a sword he’d have had in 1099, (based on several theories and the like) so I used the idea of him adopting it over time.  
> As always, thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed~


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